Indirectly, that is how a dancer and game designer from New Hampshire came to create an immersive theater show that simulated a Depression-era nightclub. In Adams’ Nutcracker-inspired 2016 production Club Drosselmeyer 1939, Tchaikovsky’s classic suite was brought into swing time and the audience was invited to dance alongside leads Clara, Drosselmeyer, and villain Rhett the Rat King. Audiences who opted to work with Herr Drosselmeyer to protect his military technology enjoyed a wild celebration to close out the evening. Audiences who favored Rhett—or worse, a leisurely night focused on floor shows and cocktails over the crisis unfolding—witnessed the murder of the show’s heroes followed by the house lights switching on while the band played The Producers’ “Springtime for Hitler.”

When Rhett’s gangsters prevailed in one performance due to the audience’s choices, the crowd was enraged. “Everybody was mad at me,” Adams recalls. “They were like ‘You wrote it!’ And I was like ‘Yeah, but you chose it.’ It was this really strange dichotomy where when you choose the bad things, the bad things happen, and I’m not going to step in as the writer god on high and save you from your bad decisions.” The message was not lost on the American Repertory Theater audience just one month after depressed turnout in key states led to a surprise Donald Trump presidency.

Jazz singer Elise Roth, who portrays Ginger in Club Drosselmeyer, Vintage Girl Studios photo

In many ways, Club Drosselmeyer is an experience to help people grapple with difficult concepts in a productive way. Adams started packaging ideas differently and interactively in Shanghai, where she began her game design career developing language-learning games to help spread Mandarin to the west. After returning to the US, she joined up with the revered location-based game company SCVNGR, where she worked with museums — many of them resistant to change — to help them introduce gaming and technology to make their programs more educational and fun. She is now the owner of of Green Door Labs, a gaming company that has created games and immersive experiences for clients like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

This year, Adams has decided to give the audience more chances at redemption. Focusing on parallels between the refugee crises of World War II and today, Club Drosselmeyer 1940 invites participants to dress to the nines, have cocktails with friends, and forge documents and twist arms to smuggle in the fleeing European masses. Whereas in last year’s production you were racing to complete projects to make show-altering decisions, this year the audience will work together, with every contribution potentially tipping the scales toward a better world.

Sultana Ismet and her Whirling Dervishes, one of the many floor shows in Club Drosselmeyer. Vintage Girl Studios photo

Adams sees the sights and sounds of the “Greatest Generation” as the perfect antidote to the despair that she sees in people, and has weaponized the “rebelliousness of joy” that comes with swing, just like her Herr Drosselmeyer weaponizes toy nutcrackers, to lift the spirits of people in dark times. “This is music you can’t listen to without moving, without being uplifted,” she says. “I think we need that right now.”

Kellian Adams–creator of Club Drosselmeyer
Boston, Massachusetts
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Top image: Dancers performing in Club Drosselmeyer. All photos by Vintage Girl Studios

The post Taking an Avant-Garde Swing at the Nutcracker appeared first on Take Magazine.

Wendy Woodson has an expansive portfolio that, at first glance, might seem without direction. She is a choreographer, writer, director, video artist, artistic director, and professor.

But Woodson’s expansive portfolio starts to make sense when you hear her advice for those looking to pursue a career in the arts: “Say yes to as many different kinds of projects and opportunities that come your way until you can’t keep saying yes because there’s too much on your plate,” says Woodson.

As Roger C. Holden Professor of Theater and Dance at Amherst College, Woodson knows firsthand that being an artist in academia is always a challenge. The arts are often misunderstood in a university setting, in terms of the deep research and process that they offer and require. So, it remains important to “persevere with your own creative impulses and visions in spite of the many hurdles that are part of being a practicing artist in today’s world,” Woodson says.

Image from recent choreography, Two by Two. Photo by Jim Coleman.

In addition to teaching, Woodson serves as artistic director of Wendy Woodson & Present Company Inc(luded), an organization she founded in 1980 to create and present original work in dance, theater, and video, in collaboration with other artists. Since then, Woodson has created more than 100 works for the stage, for site-specific locations, and for video exhibition. These works have been presented throughout the U.S., Europe, New Zealand, and Australia at venues that include the John. F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian, and more.

Most recently, Woodson directed Sourcing the Stream at Amherst College, an immersive video, sound, and performance event that looked to the stream as a source for inspiration, solace, reflection, and reaction. For each performance, nine dancers experimented with different ways of spontaneously creating material. The performances were followed by a talk with the dancers and audience members, allowing for unexpected reactions and interactions to influence the evolution of the project.

APE performance of Sourcing the Stream. Photo by Eric Poggenpohl.

“I like to make connections between different ways of knowing or learning, and I believe that this is one of my strongest assets as a teacher and artist,” says Woodson. “I also rely on improvisation and collaboration to develop work. I like to respond to the moment, to think on my feet, and to work with the responses and input of collaborators.”

Relying on improvisation and collaboration to develop work, Woodson encourages a sense of performance that heightens an awareness of the body as a home, a container, and an active playing field that manifests ideas, values, and memories.

Wendy Woodson –choreographer, professor of theater and dance at Amherst College
Amherst, Massachusetts
Website

Top image: Picture of ‘Transitions’ Video installation at APE. Photo by Wendy Woodson.

The post Wendy Woodson : She Will Persevere appeared first on Take Magazine.

On September 24th, The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture will open its doors for the first time. Among the displays, artifacts and exhibitions will be a tribute to the recently vindicated, Detroit proto-punk band Death. 

David Hackney | Photo courtesy Smithsonian

Death and Take Magazine, have quite the history. We first wrote about Death when we heard the Vermont-based rock and rollers Rough Francis were both the literal and figurative musical offspring of Death’s living co-founders, Bobby Hackney Sr. and Dannis Hackney. Since then, our collective crush on Rough Francis and Death has intensified as we’ve followed their numerous tours and releases. The exhibit honoring Death will feature Dannis Hackney’s first drum, a mural, and a tapestry.

Top Image courtesy Bandwidth.fm – WAMU 88.5

The post Death at The Smithsonian appeared first on Take Magazine.